Elektrim Loss Widens 25%

Elektrim said its first quarter consolidated loss widened twenty five percent as the Polish company sold wireless phone and cable making businesses, reducing its assets to an unprofitable local phone operator and power plants.
The loss totaled 88.8 million zloty ($21.8 million), compared with 70.9 million zloty in the same period the previous year. Sales, primarily from the company's energy business, fell by forty three percent to 568.3 million zloty.
Elektrim, which defaulted on 479 million euros ($417.26 million) of bonds in
December, has been selling assets to repay its debts and avoid bankruptcy. The company, which was once Poland's second largest phone operator, last year sold control of Elektrim Telekomunikacja, which controls central Europe's largest wireless company to Vivendi Universal.
Following the transaction, “the structure of the capital group has changed, changing also the way of calculating the consolidated revenue and depressing group sales,” Elektrim said in a statement. “Other phone services and the costs of debt servicing, to a larger extent, were responsible.”